Libya policy options

With kind permission of theatlantic.com, here is my piece they published this morning:

16 Ways the U.S. Can Help in Libya

Mar 10 2011, 7:00 AM ET By Daniel Serwer

From multilateral sanctions to unilateral covert action, here are the options Obama faces

The weekend has come and gone without a decisive outcome in Libya. The see-saw conflict continues, with Qaddafi’s tanks barging into Zawiya in the west but losing Ras Lanouf to the rebels in the east. A few people managed to demonstrate in Tripoli Friday, but sprays of automatic weapons fire dispersed them quickly. This is hardly a fair fight. Qaddafi enjoys significant geographic, military, and strategic advantages, which he is exploiting more with every passing day. A lengthy and bloody stalemate remains a distinct possibility.

The Obama administration is weighing its options. We run the risk of remembering this week’s events the way some of us remember the shelling of Dubrovnik twenty years ago: a moment when the U.S. and Europe shipped humanitarian relief supplies but their magnificent military instrument, NATO, stood by, watching relatively weak military forces wreck death and destruction on defenseless civilians. President Obama has already said, “What I want to make sure of is that the U.S. has full capacity to act rapidly if the situation deteriorates in such a way that you had a humanitarian crisis on our hands, or a situation in which defenseless civilians were finding themselves trapped and in great danger.”

Humanitarian concerns are not the only ones in Libya. Every day the war there continues drains many millions of dollars from the U.S. economy in the form of high oil prices, slowing the recovery. There is no guarantee oil prices won’t rise significantly higher, especially if demonstrations continue on the Arabian peninsula and possibly break out in Saudi Arabia. Time is not on our side.

The only objective for which the U.S. will likely consider taking serious risks is the removal of Qaddafi’s regime and, hopefully, its replacement with a constitutional, representative government that maintains the country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.

As Obama meets with his advisers to consider what the U.S. can and cannot do, here are the options he is likely to consider. He will weigh the risks of involvement against the dangers of non-involvement, the efficacy of intervention against the likelihood of backlash, unilateralism against multilateralism, the needs of Libyans against the needs of the U.S. It is a daunting list with many trade-offs and no clear best choice.

Action Under United Nations Authority

(1) More strictly enforce the financial sanctions already in place. Italy — and likely other states with close financial ties to Libya — is not yet enforcing the UN-approved financial sanctions on Libya’s sovereign wealth funds. Libyan individuals and front companies who escaped the initial asset freeze could also be targeted. The U.S. could lead a concerted effort to determine where Qaddafi is still getting money from and stop the flow. But this would require convincing states that do not already enforce the sanctions to begin doing so, which may be against their financial self-interest.

(2) More strictly enforce the arms embargo. .Libya has imported its arms mainly from Russia, Czech Republic, Serbia, and more recently Italy. It is not clear that these and other countries have withdrawn all technicians and stopped all shipments, in particular of spare parts.

(3) Draw global attention to the International Criminal Court (ICC) investigation. The ICC prosecutor did well last week to give a press conference outlining his efforts. He could be encouraged to deploy investigators at least to Benghazi if not closer to Tripoli. The ICC could also set up a website on which Libyans could document abuses. There is a great deal of information coming out via Twitter and other social networks that could be collected more systematically so that it can be properly investigated once on-the-ground access is possible. As the investigation moves forward, it will appear more threatening to Qaddafi, and could act as more of a deterrent.

(4) Enforce land, sea, and air blockades around Libya. These would enforce the arms and travel bans, in addition to helping to detain individuals being investigated by the ICC. The blockades would also position U.S. and allied forces offshore for further military action, if ever needed.

(5) Jamming and broadcasting. Jamming Libyan military communications would be consistent with the spirit of the existing UN Security Council resolution and could have a substantial effect on Qaddafi’s ability to wage war against the rebels along Libya’s long Mediterranean coast. We could also begin broadcasting international media outlets into Libya to help spread information and galvanize opposition, as Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya did in Egypt.

(6) Discourage companies from doing business with Libya. They could be made to understand that anything they ship to Qaddafi and his minions now, or any new deals they make, could cause them commercial losses when the regime falls. It is particularly important to talk to the Italian oil and gas company ENI, which is heavily dependent on Libyan supplies and is partly Libyan owned.

(7) Expand humanitarian assistance and evacuation capacity. The buildup of displaced people and refugees, many of them non-Libyan, on the borders with Tunisia and Egypt is a burden that we can help relieve by expanding shipment of humanitarian assistance and repatriating people more quickly.

Action Under New United Nations Authority

(8) Many Libyan financial assets in the U.S. have been frozen by sanctions. We could channel those assets to the Transitional Council, the political body that rebels have established as the temporary leadership in the liberated east. Helping to fund the Council could enable it to buy the military equipment it badly needs. However, this would set an unusual precedent — frozen assets are typically held with the expectation that the original owner could one day reclaim them, rather than simply given away — that could deter future foreign investment.

(9) Establish an account to control the money importers pay for Libyan oil and gas revenue. We could ask the UN to create a single account, like the 1995 “oil for food” program that controlled how Iraqi oil revenues could be spent. Libyan oil revenue could also be channeled to the Transitional Council, so long as it stays united and can legitimately claim to represent the Libyan people.

(10) Allow arms shipments directly to the Transitional Council. UN Security Council resolution 1970, passed only days ago, bans all arms shipments to Libya. Opening a breach in the arms embargo will be difficult, as many Security Council members will not want to set a precedent of allowing arms shipments to a rebellion. But it’s worth recalling the Bosnian war, when we turned a blind eye to Iran’s clandestine arms shipments to Muslim fighters. There’s no telling who could arm the Libyan rebels, but if anyone is going to do it, it might as well be us.

Direct Military Action

(11) No fly zone (NFZ). This has been extensively debated in the media as well as in Congress. But all sides seem to agree on this: better to do it with approval from the UN Security Council, both because we could use the help and to brand it as a global — rather than an American — mission. But this approval could be very tough to get unless circumstances deteriorate dramatically. While an NFZ would unquestionably help the rebellion and hurt Qaddafi, it would also require attacking Libyan air defenses. Keeping the patrols aloft would be an expensive burden, especially if it drags on for weeks or months. This could be especially unappealing to state that wouldn’t want to be seen as supporting a U.S. military effort against a Muslim country. Remember how few countries lined up to join us for invading Iraq? Any U.S. military action risks plunging us into war in Libya and and shifting the narrative away from popular uprising to a Western war against the Arab world or against Islam.

(12) No fly forever. In this less discussed variant on a no fly zone, we could take out the entire Libyan air force, fixed wing and rotary, with carefully targeted air strikes. This would require an initial attack on Libya’s air defenses, like the NFZ, but it wouldn’t require the same continuing, open-ended commitment. It would probably have to be done unilaterally, however, since discussion in the Security Council would alert Qaddafi’s military to the incoming attack and make it harder to find and destroy their aircraft.

(13) U.S. air support for rebel ground forces. This is the approach we took in both Kosovo and Afghanistan, where indigenous military forces pursued the ground war with U.S. air support. This would involve us deeply in the conflict in Libya and arguably make us morally responsible for the behavior of the Transitional Council ground forces, which may well exact ferocious revenge on Qaddafi’s loyalists. It would also require close coordination with an irregular Libyan force that appears loosely organized.

Covert Measures

(14) Establish a direct channel to Qaddafi and encourage him to leave Libya. While those who want to see Qaddafi held accountable would object, we could open a back door by which he could leave Libya. Zimbabwe and Venezuela are thought to be ready to receive him. The ICC could get him later, as it did with former Liberian President Charles Taylor. But finding him a new (if temporary) home might make Qaddafi more willing to leave. A number of states — perhaps Chad or Turkey, for example — may be able to establish intermediaries to help negotiate Qaddafi’s flight.

(15) Provide intelligence to the rebels. Battlefield intelligence could help the rebellion in meeting the challenges posed by Gaddafi’s superior firepower and reach. This could include early warning of air and ground strikes.

(16) Put U.S. special forces into Libya, ready to move against Qaddafi if an opportunity presents itself. This is fraught with risk. The troops could be found out and used to embarrass the U.S. or the rebels. They could be killed or, worse, captured. The Dutch have already been caught with marines in Libya on a mission to evacuate Dutch citizens. But it would enable us to move quickly and decisively to take out Qaddafi if we find a good opportunity or, in extreme cases, if the risks of allowing him to remain simply become too dire.

There is of course a possibility that anything we do will poison the ongoing revolutions in Libya or even throughout the Arab world. Doing nothing is also option. But, with hundreds dying, thousands fleeing, and no peaceful end in sight, nothing may be the riskiest option of all.

Egypt is important, but Libya and Yemen are urgent

While I sympathize with Robert Kagan and Michele Dunne on the importance of Egypt to the Arab world, Cairo is proceeding healthily if not rapidly in the right direction.  Libya and Yemen are more urgent problems for U.S. policy makers.

A week ago, the question of whether to intervene in Libya was already urgent.  Nothing that has happened since has made it less so.  Gaddafi has managed not only to hold Tripoli but to demonstrate that he can punch into the western oil town of Zawiya at will while hassling the rebellion in the east from the air.  It is only a matter of time before his superior fire power, more consolidated position and inclination to attack civilian populations causes a major disaster. If you are interested, Jeffrey White provides the best analysis of the military situation I have seen.

I understand of course that diplomacy is slow and more art than science.  But I also understand that leadership is critical to getting diplomatic ducks in a row.  While clear enough about wanting Gaddafi out, and correct to want to consult rather than impose, the time has come for some American decisions.  theatlantic.com will publish in the next hours my list of options to be considered.  Here I would like to focus on the importance of two other things:  getting Gaddafi out of there and maintaining a unified alternative to him.

Gaddafi has spent the last couple of days dangling the possibility of negotiations.  He knows this will divide his opponents, some of whom will be ready to talk.  But talk will inevitably lead to Gaddafi remaining in Libya, something that really won’t work.  The regime is so closely tied to his family that for any serious change to take place he has to be out of there, with his offspring.  He long ago gave up any claim he might have had to a peaceful retirement in a desert tent.  The best he can hope for now is Zimbabwe or Venezuela, something that should be negotiated not with the rebels but with Harare or Caracas.

The rebels are showing signs of trying to get organized, as well as indications that they are finding it difficult to remain united.  They need to remember what Ben Franklin said just before signing the Declaration of Independence:  “We must, indeed, all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately.”  American diplomacy should by now be in touch with the Interim Transitional National Council.  (I’ve included the website link, even though the precise relationship between the website and the council is not entirely clear to all observers, because it contains interesting documents.)  It is exceedingly important that the international community start channeling information and assistance through an institution that can claim legitimacy with most of the rebellion.  That will help consolidate unity.

Yemen, a frontline state in the fight with Al Qaeda, is becoming almost as urgent as Libya.  President Saleh is losing his grip.  Yesterday he used lethal force against student demonstrators, and he has lost the loyalty of important tribes.  Yemen has not plunged as precipitously into civil war as Libya, but the potential is certainly there, as separatists both in the north and the south may see an opportunity to achieve their goals in a country where declining oil production, water shortages and qat addiction have already weakened the state dramatically.

The Americans should  be aiming for a negotiated solution in Yemen, closer to the outcome in Egypt than in Libya.  Sanaa has a reasonably moderate opposition, one highly compromised by association with the regime but now standing up a bit more courageously to demand that Salih leave this year rather than stay on to the end of his term in 2013, as he has proposed.  In Yemen, too, some sort of unified opposition/protester institution is needed to speak with one voice and carry forward a delicate political maneuver to remove the president by the end of this year, using the meantime to develop and implement an alternative that can begin the difficult process of reconstructing a state that is very close to collapse.